HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us officially dropped on Sunday, and it was spectacular.

Fans of Naughty Dog’s games finished the premiere episode with heavy but hopeful hearts. The show’s care for the source material and flawless recreation of key video game scenes hit the nail directly on the head, and exemplified for studios — and fans everywhere — that video games can be adapted, and well, if approached by the right team. 

Fans are celebrating the show’s many wins in the wake of its arrival, and many of these can be attributed to the team behind the series. Impactful writing, gorgeous cinematography, and stellar acting all contributed to the show’s success, as did the games that inspired it. Those games are still considered amongst the very best video game releases of all time, and newcomers are just starting to realize why.

Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, and the rest of the actors striving to bring The Last of Us to live-action are entirely up to the task, if the show’s first episode is any indication. They’re fully encompassing characters some fans have loved for years, complete with their mannerisms, accents, and excellently reproduced costumes. No actor can flawlessly copy a video game character, of course, so there are differences between the characters’ video game and live action counterparts, but they’re few and far between.

The Last of Us video game versions of the HBO series characters

Some of the characters in HBO’s…